When It Don't Come Easy

Author: enigmaticblue

Rating: PG-13

Archive: If you already have my stuff, if not please ask.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, and I'm certainly not making any money off them, more's the pity.

Summary: Going rapidly AU during the events of Entropy in BtVS S6, Spike makes a couple of wishes that will change everything. What is Buffy going to do when presented with a very different Spike—who doesn't feel quite the same way about her anymore?

A/N: This fic presupposes my short stories, The Lonely Hearts Club and The Way to a Poet's Heart. You don't have to have read those; just know that in this 'verse Spike and Tara have become pretty good friends.

Chapter 1: A Friend In Need

"I have seen peace. I have seen pain,/resting on the shoulders of your name./Do you see the truth through all their lies?/Do you see the world through troubled eyes?/And if you want to talk about it anymore,/lie here on the floor and cry on my shoulder,/I'm a friend./I have seen birth. I have seen death,/lived to see a lover's final breath./Do you see my guilt? Should I feel fright?/Is the fire of hesitation burning bright?/And if you want to talk about it once again,/on you I'll depend. I'll cry on your shoulder./You're a friend..." ~James Blunt, "Cry"

Spike growled in frustration as Buffy left. No matter what he did, no matter what he said, it was never enough for her. Never enough to convince her that he'd changed—that he was changing—for her. So what he felt was real for him, huh? Well, Spike would make it just a little less real.

He headed for the Magic Box, hell-bent on finding something to numb the pain. A forgetting spell, maybe? Spike wouldn't mind forgetting all about Buffy; knowing her had brought him nothing but pain. He might have tried going to Tara, but he knew she was trying to mend things with Willow, and he wasn't going to barge in on their date.

No, he was on his own for this one; Spike could look forward to being on his own for a long time to come, it seemed.

Anya was behind the counter when he arrived, talking to the dark-haired vengeance demon who had caused so much trouble at Buffy's birthday party. Her identity barely registered; Spike was too intent on getting what he came for to really think about the implications of Anya and Halfrek having a girls' night out.

"I need a spell," Spike said without preamble.

Anya's eyes brightened as soon as she recognized him, which probably should have alarmed him, but Spike wasn't thinking about that, either. "Just a second," she said, turning to speak with the other woman in hushed whispers.

Spike's sharp ears caught their entire conversation, and he realized that Anya wasn't human any longer. His mouth curved into a rather nasty smirk; he could make a wish. She wanted vengeance on Xander? Well, Spike wouldn't mind Xander getting a bit of what was coming to him. After all, Harris was one of the reasons that Buffy refused to give them a chance. If it weren't for her little friends, she might actually think about things, rather than just assume the worst about his intentions.

Not that he was going to wish that Buffy would love him, or anything like that; Spike didn't want to force her into it. He just wanted the Slayer and her Scoobies to open their sodding eyes and see what was right in front of their noses.

"So what do you need?" Anya asked, turning back to him once Halfrek had left.

Spike shrugged. "I don't know. A numbing spell, maybe?" He hesitated. "Or we could dive right in to what you want."

Anya looked surprised that he would be the first to bring it up. "I take it you heard."

"I heard." Spike gave her a speculative look. "The question is what you're going to do for me if I make this wish for you."

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

"What if I want to make a wish for myself?" Spike asked. "Can you grant it?"

"Not if you've already made a wish," Anya admitted. "We're not genies; we can't grant three of them. You pretty much get one shot."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "I guess we need to figure out how we're both going to get what we want, then."

Anya sighed, then ducked behind the counter, retrieving a bottle of Jack Daniels and setting it down. "I think we might need some refreshment for that."

~~~~~

Buffy was grateful that she hadn't had any time to think about the look on Spike's face when she'd confronted him earlier in the day. If it had been anyone but Spike wearing that expression, Buffy would have felt horribly guilty about the hurt she'd caused; he'd looked so—wounded. Which was impossible, really, because soulless vampires didn't feel hurt, and they didn't fall in love with Slayers.

Maybe if Buffy hadn't had to worry about the nerds, who were proving to be a bit more challenging as foes than she'd expected—or if she hadn't been trying to patch things up between her and Dawn—she wouldn't have been able to block the recent interaction with Spike from her mind.

If she'd let herself think about it, Buffy would have had to admit that every scrap of evidence pointed to Spike being able to feel, and that he'd done nothing to indicate that he wanted to harm her. Quite the opposite, actually.

So it was probably a good thing for the Slayer's peace of mind that she didn't have time to think about any of it, that she could forget the hurt on Spike's face, the realization that adding those last few words had been a needless cruelty.

"I think it is. For you."

Buffy might have been able to deliberately forget the harm she'd caused, but her own words echoed in the corners of her mind; if she'd had but a moment to think about it, she would have recognized those words for the lie they were.

The very fact that she was alive bore witness to the truth of Spike's feelings.

So it was really a good thing that Buffy was too intent on watching Willow trace the video feeds to find out where the nerds had planted their cameras to think about any of that.

~~~~~

Spike watched Anya slam back another drink; he was impressed at the woman's ability to put away the shots without toppling over, although he supposed it might have had something to do with the fact that she was a vengeance demon again.

"You really want him to suffer?" Spike asked.

"Of course I want him to suffer!" Anya protested. "He left me! Xander humiliated me!"

Spike tilted his head, meeting her eyes. While he had no problem wishing vengeance on Harris, the problem was that there was only one wish, and if she didn't want him to use it on Xander, Spike wanted to use it for himself. He wondered what Buffy would do when he no longer loved her; Spike had a feeling that she might change her tune then.

No matter what the Slayer said, Spike couldn't believe that she felt nothing at all for him.

Anya softened under his steady gaze. "I don't know," she finally admitted. "I just want him to hurt as much as I do. All this time, I've been so angry with him, but I keep thinking that I did something wrong, you know?"

"No," Spike said softly. "He's a wanker, pet. Nothing you can do about that."

Anya shook her head helplessly. "He left me, Spike. There had to be a reason for it; how do I know it wasn't me?"

"Because he'd have to be more than the git he is—he'd have to be deaf, dumb, and blind, too," Spike replied, reaching up to brush the tears from her cheeks gently.

Anya sniffled. "I hate this feeling. I just—I don't want to feel this way anymore."

Spike hesitated. He could make this wish for her, and he would be giving up the chance of getting a little of his own back, at least through a wish. There might be another way—a spell to forget, or to end, love.

For the moment, Anya seemed to need this more than he did, even though they were very much in the same position—loving people who couldn't or wouldn't love them back in the way they deserved.

It was really too bad that he wasn't in love with Anya, or that they couldn't move on together. Somehow he thought that might be the best revenge, but Spike knew that it would be no more than a brief solace, and he could get that somewhere else with less hurt on either side. He didn't want to do her any more harm than had already been done.

Right now, though, he could make a wish. He could make things easier on her.

"Then I wish that everything you feel right now, Xander would feel instead, so you don't have to hurt," Spike said. "Figure it's only right."

Anya's face changed to that of the demon's. "Done." She shifted back to her human guise just as quickly, her eyes widening as she realized exactly what he'd done for her. She promptly burst into tears, which would have alarmed Spike, if not for the fact that she was smiling. "Thank you, Spike. You're the first person all day who actually wanted to help me."

Spike couldn't help the smile that tilted up the corners of his mouth. Her gratitude was overwhelming, and it felt pretty damn good; it was about time someone appreciated his efforts on their behalf. "Then it worked?" he asked.

Anya smiled, her tears quickly drying up as the relief settled in. Her love for Xander had changed to a gentle ache, as though dulled by years that hadn't yet passed; she might have arrived at this point on her own, but it would have required a lot more time. Anya had wanted to feel better more than she'd wanted Xander to suffer, and this was just what the doctor ordered.

"Perfectly." She frowned, realizing what he'd just done.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"You," she said bluntly. They'd already discussed the virtue that her directness could be. "You didn't get your wish."

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter, really. I'll figure something else out."

"No," Anya insisted. "There has to be something."

Spike shrugged, not thinking much about what he said, knowing that Anya couldn't grant his wish.

How was he to know that Halfrek had been hanging around, waiting for his wish, on the off chance that Anya wouldn't be able to grant his wish against Xander, or that the vampire would give her a chance to get even with the Slayer for embarrassing her so badly at that party?

"Wish I could be the sort of man she could love. Either that, or that I could stop loving her."

That was all it took for his entire world to change.

Spike didn't hear her whispered words over the jangling of the bell as he left the shop. "Done, and done."

He did, however, hear the beating of his heart.

~~~~~

Tara clutched her books a little tighter to her chest as she hurried back to her apartment. The date with Willow had been nice—better than nice, really; it was like slipping into her favorite pair of shoes, comfortable and easy.

She frowned at the memory. Too easy, maybe, given what had happened between them. It was going to take a lot longer for Tara to trust Willow again, to know that the other woman wouldn't simply resort to magic to smooth over their problems. Willow had made a lot of progress, but that didn't mean that everything was fixed.

There was a good possibility that things would never be fixed, that she would never be able to trust Willow again, but Tara wanted to try.

She still loved Willow; that much hadn't changed.

After their meeting, Tara had gone to the school library to research a paper that was due soon. Not surprisingly, without the constant immersion in the Slayer's problems and saving the world, Tara was finding it a lot easier to keep up with her schoolwork.

Of course, she still found herself dealing with Spike on a regular basis, but his visits represented welcome breaks in her otherwise mundane life; the vampire was just a reminder of the world that existed after dark. Being with Spike was a little like hanging out with the bad boy at school; you knew you weren't going to do anything wrong, but there was still the lure of the forbidden, and that was like a shot of adrenaline.

At least, that was true in theory, because Spike really didn't strike Tara as all that threatening these days, nor all that evil. Morally ambiguous, maybe, but not truly bad.

Tara frowned as she strode down the hallway towards her apartment door. She could see a figure huddled on the floor right next to her apartment, but before alarm could settle in, the black leather duster and platinum hair gave Spike's identity away.

It wasn't terribly unusual for Spike to simply show up, but Tara had never known him to wait for her return before; typically, he would come back later and let her know that he'd been by while she was gone. The fact that he was waiting suggested that something was up—something serious.

"Spike?" Tara called as she approached him cautiously.

He looked up at her then, and she could see that he had a black eye and a split lip. More than that, his aura had completely changed.

Tara was suddenly quite sure that this wasn't Spike she was looking at.

"Didn't know where else to go," he mumbled, ducking his head again.

"You came to the right place," Tara reassured him, unlocking the door quickly. "Come inside now."

He got to his feet, showing an odd lack of grace that didn't fit with what Tara had seen of the vampire at all.

Of course, his aura revealed that he wasn't actually a vampire any longer, so perhaps that explained it.

"Sit down," Tara said, pointing him towards the threadbare couch she'd found at Goodwill. He sat down gingerly, his movements tentative. "I'm going to get something for your face," she said.

She filled a plastic bag with ice and wrapped it in a kitchen towel for the bruises, and then wet a cloth to sponge the blood off his lip. "Can you tell me what happened?" she asked gently. When he didn't reply immediately, she tried again. "Can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

"An alley," Spike said, mumbling around the wet cloth she was daubing his mouth with. "There was a dark-haired woman there, and she—" He shook his head impatiently, dislodging Tara's hands. "No. No, that's not right. I was—I was in a shop, talking with a woman. We—we were drinking."

That explained the scent of alcohol she'd caught on his breath, and Tara thought that the shop had to be the Magic Box. No amount of liquor would turn a vampire into a human, however, so she was still in the dark about what had changed him so drastically. "What else?"

Spike took the ice she handed him and pressed it to his bruised face. "I made a wish, and she granted it."

Tara swallowed hard, realizing what that meant: Anya was a vengeance demon again, and the other woman—demon—had probably been trying to get one of them to make a wish for her; that would certainly explain Anya's odd behavior from earlier, when Tara had seen her while on her date with Willow.

If Spike had made a wish, though, why wasn't everything different?

"What did you wish for?" Tara asked.

Spike kept the ice against his face, muffling his words. "I wished that he would experience her pain so she didn't have to hurt."

"Oh." Tara considered that for a moment; as wishes went, it wasn't a bad one, since Xander wasn't going to be eviscerated, and the entire world hadn't gone kerplooey. Of course, none of that explained why Spike was sitting on her couch with a heartbeat, looking like he'd gone a couple of rounds with the Slayer. "I assume that you made another wish."

He frowned, then winced when he felt the bruising. "I don't think so. No, I—the woman said she could only grant one wish, and that's the one I made."

Tara realized that Spike hadn't once mentioned anybody by name, although it was easy enough to guess who he was referring to from the context. "Spike, do you remember anybody's name?"

Blue eyes met hers, and Tara could see a wealth of emotion there—confusion, pain, fear, anguish, guilt. It was overwhelming, and she wasn't even inside his head. "No. It's—everything—it's like a book I read once. I remembered that you had been kind, so I came here. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't..."

He trailed off, and Tara could see his jaw working as he tried to keep back the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. "You did the right thing," she assured him, not certain how she was going to help, but knowing that she had to try. "What would you like me to call you?"

Spike looked down at the ugly green carpet and then back up at her again. "I suppose I'm still William. I don't feel like William anymore, though. Who am I now?"

Tara only wished that she knew the answer.

~~~~~

Buffy watched as Willow pulled up feed after feed; everywhere the Slayer or the others might be, a camera had been there, watching them, and it was impossible to know for how long. She bit back a curse as she realized that the nerds had probably seen her having sex with Spike, depending on how long they'd had the cameras up. She flushed, hoping that it wasn't information they were going to be sharing anytime soon.

The picture on the laptop shifted, and Buffy watched as Anya locked up the Magic Box in preparation to leave. Her head snapped around when she heard Xander's whimper. "Xander? Are you okay?"

He shook his head. "No, it hurts."

"What hurts?" she asked insistently. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he said. "Seeing her. I just—it hurts too much to breathe."

Buffy noticed that he'd gone pale and was clutching at his stomach. Willow looked anxiously at him. "What can we do, Xander? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"It's not like that," he said, clutching at a chair so he could sit down. "It's not physical."

Buffy and Willow exchanged looks. "You're not giving us much to go on here," the Slayer said, trying to be patient.

"What's wrong with Xander?" Dawn asked as she entered the room.

"We don't know," Buffy replied. "He just started moaning."

Xander shot her a dirty look. "Thanks for your sympathy, Buffy."

Buffy didn't bother to check her eye roll. "Xander, I don't know what to do for you unless you tell me what's wrong."

"I don't know what it is!" he exclaimed. "I feel like I did after—after I left the wedding, only about ten times worse."

Willow bit her lip. "Maybe a spell?" Her eyes widened. "Wait a minute. Did anybody else talk to Anya today?"

"Yeah," Xander replied. "I think she'd be happier if I was dead."

"She came by," Buffy said. "Anya seemed really broken up."

Dawn was the first to put two and two together. "She was trying to get me to make a wish. Anya's a vengeance demon again."

Xander shook his head. "I'm not sure—"

"Oh, crap." Buffy flushed as she remembered how close she'd come to using the "w" word. "You're right, Dawnie."

"We don't know that," Xander protested. "Anya wouldn't—"

"She was talking to Tara and I about how much we must hate men since we're lesbians," Willow said apologetically. "I'm pretty much thinking that she wanted vengeance."

Buffy winced. "To be fair, Xander, you can't really blame her."

Xander flushed deeply, looking like he was about to start crying, a sight that all the girls found highly disturbing. The last time Xander had cried had been at Buffy's funeral. "Maybe I deserve it , but it would be nice to know what she wished for, and whether this is ever going to go away."

"Someone should go talk to Anya," Willow said. "No one else is going to know except the person who made the wish, and we don't know who that was."

"I can go," Buffy said. "I think she might listen to me; we were definitely connecting before Xander showed up."

"Are you guys sure none of you wished for anything?" Xander asked.

All three of the girls shook their heads vehemently. "I never use that word anymore," Dawn said. "And I'm never going to again."

Buffy gave Xander a sympathetic look. "I'll see what I can find out. Even if Anya did curse you, she'll probably be happy to talk about it. She always enjoyed talking vengeance before."

Xander's dark eyes were full of hurt at her attempt at levity. "Could you try to convince her to lift the curse, Buffy? I don't think I can live with this for very long."

"I'll ask her," Buffy promised, but she didn't say that she thought that the chance Anya would willingly lift the curse was akin to a snowball's chance in hell.